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Just watched A Crude Awakening: The Oil Crash Really interesting documentary. Early part of the film has a facinating high level look at the recent history of the world through an "oil lense".

Latter portion of the movie looks at what we can do to replace oil in the short term.

It's not a shiny happy movie. It's not a depressing movie, but it does illustrate the point that, eventually cheap oil is going to run out and then we're Fncked!

It should be available at your local video store, Netflix, iTunes or maybe even on that site which is a combination of what Johnny Depp is famous for playing, combined with the name of that guy who made Transformers and Armagedon.

The movie is an hour and a half and you should give it a watch, it's good.

Why have we got to the point that everyone refers to everyone else by their first names.

Didn't it used to be that friends referred to you by your first name, and people who were not your friends, or didn't know you well, referred to you by your last name and the appropriate honorific? (Mr, Mrs, Ms, Dr, Senator, whatever)

» Favtape is like Muxtape but with the ability to find songs by people you want to find songs by. Try the search. Whoa. (Here's a U2 Search Click on a Title and it will start playing.)

Random Non-Sequiters

Despite the anemic list of links above, I actually spent a fair amount of time surfing the internet today.

There's always lots of random stuff to look at. But it seems to be more mindless web channel surfing than anything else of late. Or maybe I've just commented on most everything on this blog in the last few years and I'm just a little jaded when it comes to new web stuff.

I don't know.

Is there anything you've been excited about on the internet lately? Anything I'm missing?

Your typical soda fountain in a fast-food joint features eight boring choices, usually offering nothing more exotic than "Orange." It's been that way for decades, but one of the oldest players in the market is finally shattering that paradigm. Coca-Cola is introducing a machine that can pour 100 different flavors. Early prototypes underwent testing earlier this summer and second-gen units are headed for limited markets early next year.

3M has been showing off their prototype for a micro projector since CES in January. Their German division has recently announced that their prototype will soon become a reality. The MPro110 uses LCoS display technology to display VGA (640 x 480) resolution. It also uses an LED lamp, which means no fan noise. The LED is expected to display images bright enough to be seen in a brightly lit room. This feature is ideal for traveling presenters. The MPro110 weighs only 0.3 lbs and is less than an inch high. It is able to display an image up to 50 inches, diagonally. The connections for this device are few but useful including a VGA connection and a composite video connection. These connections allow the MPro110 to be used in a variety of situations from including office presentations, playing games, or watching movies. You can even connect you iPod to the projector and watch video either on a table or your best friend's back. The MPro110 is expected to retail for about $359 and will be available worldwide September 30th.

The cover itself was on the third shelf in completely buried behind two other rows of magazines... which of course negated any passerby attraction the cover could have, since you could not see it.

The eInk is very cool but the screen backing is not an active matrix, it has a segmented backend similar in function to an LCD style lowend video game.

If I was designing this cover, I probably would have went with a more pictorial approach, a series of animated pictographs or cartoon characters, something that people would want to take apart and hack or at least display.

The Ford ad on the inside is a complete waste... the overprinted graphics almost completely obscure the eink itself. The designers do not seem to understand that eink is not a light emitting technology, it is in fact reflective like real ink, so designing an ad that would function best with flashing light behind it is puzzling. They would have been better off just using a blinking Ford Logo in some way.

Overall, I'm still very excited by the technology, but this implementation is less than inspiring. For $6 however, it is cool to have some functioning eInk.

Sony eReader

Also saw the Sony eInk, eReader in Target this week. $299, very very cool. Not sure if it's worth $300 yet. for $150 I probably would have bought it right there and then though. I'm guessing it's going to be a little bit before the price gets down that far.

If you get a chance to see the eReader at Target (look for it on an endcap in the electronics dept) Do so, also make sure you push some buttons. I'm guessing most people will walk by it and due to it's reflective nature, will not realize it is a working unit and instead they will think it has a fake paper screen.

After some successes, our team is feeling good about themselves. But a celebration of their accomplishments and revelry in growing friendships takes a terrible turn as they find themselves caught up in a dangerous game that could cost them dearly.

It's only 99¢ for PDF or CBZ ($5 Printed copy will be available soon!)

Just watched last night's Real Time with Bill Mahr and I have a thought.

Here's a possible reason why the Republicans are still doing so well, despite every reason why they shouldn't be.

People who vote for Republicans don't want to be considered stupid.

Democrats are not stopping at saying the (R)s are wrong, they're going as far as saying the (R)s are stupid. Perhaps not the (D) candidates themselves, but the rest of the party really wants to call the R out on their stupidity.

The Ds think that they are justified in calling the Rs stupid. By all rules of reason and logic the D's are justified. But you can't win that way. The Ds are attacking the R's where a large portion of their base is most vulnerable, they're attacking the Rs self-esteem.

The Ds are leaving the Rs nowhere to go and no way to save face and no way to regain their dignity. The Ds want vindication, they were right and the R's were wrong. The Ds want vindication more than they want political victory. The Rs want their dignity and to save face more than they want anything in their economic or social interests.

It's an emotional argument. And the D's are trying to use reason and logic to win an emotional argument. You can't use reason and logic to win an emotional argument.

Every time the Ds attack the Rs, the Rs can point out, "See the Ds are calling you stupid again." That is going to resonate with people with low self-esteem. People whose self esteem is attacked will try to protect their emotional well being even before their economic or physical well being.

As a side note, I think this is why the Republicans attack the Department of Education. Educated people generally have higher self esteem, and then those people would not be able to be manipulated by this very emotional technique.

The sad thing about my little rambling above... Rs are going to see me as calling them stupid too.

That's not my intent, but that emotional trap is a black hole and any reason or logic is enough to set it off.

• Legally recognized friendships? So umm... how would you break-up or divorce your friend? Seems like a weird government involvement. Seems like it would be better to just remove government completely than start legislating different legally binding levels of relationships.

• Green Lantern Movie Concept Art. No white gloves? Oh, you really should do the white gloves, somehow, there needs to be some white on those mits. Anyway, a couple more concept pictures at the link. Hopefully this movie does not get made, because y'know most movies suck, and they're just going to flood the market of what is a nice niche thing for me with lots of crappy merchandise.

• If you leave your computer on all night, and sleep within earshot of it, you might want to try Sleep.fm a social networking alarm. You can set alarms on it and friends can even leave messages for you to wake up too. Interesting.

Sat, 25 May 2013 07:57:39 -0700
I?m not a fan of the new Flickr redesign. It?s not even that I don?t like the visual look of it.My primary beef is: without warning they completely changed the service for paying customers. I?ve payed for a Pro account for years under the assumption that paying for a service would provide a little more reliability. Flickr has shown that not to be the case, so I?m planning to use it far less frequently and probably far differently than the personal photo site of record I have been using it as. (I?m also not pleased with their likely upcoming attention/advertising model)

I was able to put all my photos into one Set and download the full size images using a free service called flickandshare.com, so I have everything safely out of the service now. Likely I will eventually set up my own simple photo gallery (and give these photos a new home) on my website at chris-karath.com. Hosting your own services and codes seem to be the most reliable method for content that you want around for years to come.

Photos that are here now, will probably continue to be here, Yahoo willing, into the future.

Since Flickr has shown itself to be of unpredictable stability, and it appears to be transforming into more a social network than a photo service, I?ll probably plan on treating it as such. If you subscribe to my account for the action figures, I?ll probably from time to time still post a picture or two of those here with links back to my own site where I?ll likely start posting more photos.

If you follow for my personal photos, following me on Twitter or my personal blog atchris-karath.com will probably be your best bet. --- Best wishes, Chris.

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 13:49:02 -0700
I've never actually taken the full tour of the Museum. It was free today, so we went through it. It's nicely done for it's sort of thing.

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 13:49:02 -0700
Those light poles to the shore should be dry land

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 13:49:01 -0700
Stairways to nowhere. Grand Rapids.

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 13:49:00 -0700

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 13:48:59 -0700

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 13:48:58 -0700
Grand Rapids Art Museum. This display is by a new guy who just joined our team at work.

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 06:49:01 -0700

Sat, 30 Mar 2013 12:17:53 -0700
Both these guys have contributed a lot to comics. I'm not implying anything with the choice of pose. I figure in classic comic parlance though, these two comic heroes would be obligated to fight before teaming up to defeat some great evil.

Recent Blog Comments

Thread: p1825 Post by Jolloway2013-02-23 12:23:49 Hi Cris and other people who view this sight,
I just started a blog site jolloway.co.uk and I wonderd if anyone can give me any tips on blogging. I am curently using a site called word press to host me blog. I start around about a month ago and I\'m really struggling with it and if you do reply I\'m only 11 and found this sight by a photo in google Images.
-Josh
P.S. I love the background XP

Thread: p1706 Post by Chris2012-10-27 13:29:47 Fortunately, I resisted the DC/Master Bundles as they were pretty much only bundled with basic figures I already had. Had they been bundled with more unique DC figures, I might have alot more Masters figures at this point ;)

Thread: p1706 Post by De2012-10-27 13:06:27 I almost bit on Masters of the Universe when they were being bundled with DC Universe figures in the two-packs. I\'ve also liked the blending of sci-fi and fantasy but a lad only has so much room :-)

Thread: p1674 Post by T. Bass2012-10-24 20:55:50 Hi Chris:
Like you, I bought and just received an ONDA V701. Mine took 32 days (!) to arrive from China (bought from gadgetdealer.com... avoid like plague), and the box was beat to hell, but it seems to work fine ....with one exception.
That said, I like the tablet thus far, but a couple of things aren\'t flying right. One, it was advertised as having Adobe Flash ver. 11.1, but instead, mine came with 10.2. Yours? Not sure this matters, as Flash is going the way of the dodo-bird as far as Android goes.
My only real complaint thus far, and that despite trying everything I could find online, I cannot get NetFlix to work. This was/is one of the main reasons I bought it, as they advertised that it \"works with NetFlix\". I don\'t know whether it\'s the tablet, or the app that is the problem, but nonetheless, no love from NetFlix at this point.
I don\'t know if you are subscribed to Netflix, but if you are, I sure would like to know if it works for you on your V701, and if so, how did you get it going, and what settings are you\'re using to make it work? Appreciate hearing from you.
Best,
T. Bass
Applegate, Oregon

Thread: p1557 Post by davy2012-08-24 17:58:58 i kind of agree with you, and i\'m sure bale had the best intentions but the whole media circus at times is disturbing.
but if to had to pick on whether bale should have visited or not i\'d rather he visit for the sole reason that if he made any of the survivors feel good,even if it was only for the briefest moments, then it was worth it.
the victims medical and emotonals needs should be put first and if bale\'s visit helped any of them emotionally then i\'m glad